@InProceedings{Braga:2018:NaRe,
author = "Braga, Jo{\~a}o",
affiliation = "{Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)}",
title = "Scientific balloon activities in Brazil: national report",
year = "2018",
organization = "Cospar Scientific Assembly, 42.",
abstract = "In this talk I will present the latest developments in scientific
balloon activities in Brazil, and prospects for the future. Since
the last COSPAR Scientific Assembly, the activities at INPE,
Brazils National Institute for Space Research, have been
concentrated in the development of the protoMIRAX experiment and
its balloon gondola. protoMIRAX is a prototype of the space
experiment MIRAX (Monitor e Imageador de Raios X - Monitor and
Imager of X Rays) that is currently under revision by INPE and the
Brazilian Space Agency. protoMIRAX is a hard X-ray (30 to 200 keV)
codedmask imager with an angular resolution of 1.75 degrees in a
20 x 20 degrees fully-coded field-of-view. The detector plane
comprises and array of 13 x 13 planar CdZnTe detectors with
dimensions 10mm x 10mm x 2mm. The X-ray imager is housed in a
balloon gondola with a complete attitude control and pointing
system developed in a partnership between INPE and COMPSIS, a
private company in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil. The development of
protoMIRAX has given the Ballon Launching Center at INPE the
opportunity to upgrade its technology and prepare for the
provision of important services to the scientific ballooning
communities both in Brazil and abroad. I will also present some
recent initiatives carried out in Brazilian universities and
centers to conduct astrobiology-related and atmospheric
experiments in small balloons.",
conference-location = "Pasadena, California",
conference-year = "14-22 July",
language = "en",
targetfile = "braga_scientific.pdf",
urlaccessdate = "03 jun. 2024"
}